It is essential to take fully into account the long-term risks and costs to health, environment and communities of all energy resources and to adopt policies based on least cost to consumers and minimal risk.

Alarmed by current U.S. energy policy, 60 Americans from all over the country came together in 2012 and earlier this year in Cambridge, Mass., to explore alternatives to the dangerous and misleading course being taken by industry and the nation’s political leaders. In three days of intense discussion, the group came up with the “American Clean Energy Agenda,” nine principles to put us on a course toward truly renewable, non-polluting energy.

Marking a major victory for efforts to protect the iconic Grand Canyon National Park and the Colorado River, a U.S. district court judge last week upheld the Obama administration’s moratorium on new mining claims on a million acres surrounding the Canyon.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar’s decision to bar new uranium mining claims on 1 million acres around the Grand Canyon marks a decisive victory for efforts to protect the iconic national park and the Colorado River, the source of drinking water for 26 million Americans.

The Obama administration today took an emergency measure to bar new mining claims on a 1-million-acre area around the Grand Canyon until December. At that time, administration officials indicated they hope to come up with a more comprehensive solution to protect one million acres around Grand Canyon National Park from new mining claims for the next 20 years.

The Obama administration’s imminent decision on the future of uranium mining near the Grand Canyon could be swayed by the analysis of a mining industry consultant who stands to reap hundreds of thousands of dollars if the moratorium on new uranium claims is lifted, according to a new report from Earthworks and the Environmental Working Group.

Uranium mining near the Grand Canyon could have health impacts and erode trust in the safety of drinking water supplies for 26 million residents of Southern California, Nevada and Arizona, the region’s water suppliers warn.

U.S. Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar, today proposed to place off-limits to new mining activity approximately one million acres near the Grand Canyon for up to 20 years. The proposal prohibits the staking of new mining claims for up to two years to allow for various studies to be performed. Previous attempts by a House committee to protect the Grand Canyon were ignored by the Bush administration.

The U.S. Department of the Interior last week authorized mining for uranium on federal land near Grand Canyon National Park in an apparent violation of a Congressional resolution passed last June that declared more than 1 million acres around the Park off-limits to new mining activity.

The antiquated 1872 Mining Law, a relic of America’s westward expansion, has fought off many attempts at reform. Currently hardrock mining companies, many of them foreign, pay no royalties for the resources they extract and engage in environmentally destructive practices that often employ highly toxic chemicals in their mining efforts.

The Bush administration allowed Phoenix-based Neutron Energy to stake 20 new mining claims south of the Grand Canyon on August 7, in violation of an emergency Congressional resolution passed seven weeks earlier that declared off limits to mining activity approximately 1 million acres adjacent to Grand Canyon National Park.

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration allowed Phoenix-based Neutron Energy to stake 20 new mining claims south of the Grand Canyon on August 7, in violation of an emergency Congressional resolution passed seven weeks earlier that declared off limit

In response to the threat that surging mining claims along the Colorado pose to drinking water in Las Vegas, the General Manager for the Southern Nevada Water Authority (SNWA), Patricia Mulroy, sent a letter to Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne requesting that “Interior carefully evaluate the implications for water quality in the Colorado River before authorizing [hardrock] mining operations within its watershed.”

Mining claims near the Colorado River have doubled in the last five years, raising fears that the West’s most important waterway – a source of drinking water to 25 million people – could become contaminated by toxic heavy metals, including radioactive uranium waste.

Since the Sagebrush Rebellion of the late 1970s, industries that profit by taking resources from Western public lands – logging, oil and gas drilling, and mining – have stirred up opposition to increased environmental regulation by pai